Various automatic baiting machines which use pieces of fish as bait, possibly fillets, have been proposed, the most improved machine being described in French Patent Application FR-A-2 545 322 filed on May 4, 1983 in the name of the Applicant for a "Machine a boetter pour la peche a la palangre" (A baiting machine for trawl line fishing).
For some trawl line fishing, notably the fishing of hake, entire fish are used as bait. These fish include sardines and mackerels. The devices used for randomly hooking the bait, such as the automatic machines of the prior art, or a fork used for presenting the bait as in the hereabove cited application, are not applicable with entire fish. Moreover, the fishing quality of the bait formed by entire fish is very closely a function of the hooking mode of the bait. In the case where the fish hook transversely crosses the body below a dorsal fin, the fish forms a helix and snarls the bottom of the line under the action of the currents. If the fish hook is caught inside the fish mouth, the above disadvantage is avoided but since the lips are relatively fragile there is a risk of unhooking due if the lips are torn away. The best hooking engages the point of the fish hook within the skull, the point projecting outside the buccal cavity. But such a hooking has to be made with accuracy so as to engage the point of the fish hook in the relatively soft area at the top of the fish brain-pan. Moreover, the fish is relatively fragile and it is not possible to forcibly disengage the fish from the guiding member which has presented the fish to the point of the fish hook.